SPEAKING the day after Japan's general election, Shinzo Abe boasted that he had made history for his Liberal Democratic Party (ldp). A big win on October 22nd was the third landslide he had helped it achieve in coalition with Komeito, a Buddhist-linked party, in the vote for the lower house of the Diet, or parliament. It was also Mr Abe's fifth successive electoral victory. If he remains four more years at the country's helm, as is likely, halfway into his term he will become Japan's longest-serving prime minister since the second world war. That is pretty good going for a politician who has often (not least at the start of this election campaign) looked in peril and is deeply unpopular with many voters. Mr Abe now has a chance to achieve a long-cherished goal: changing the pacifist language of Japan's constitution.
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